Transcription
If you're practicing a lot but not getting better, here's probably why. You're trying to improve too many things at once.
Now, here's what most players miss. Confidence doesn't come from learning a bunch of new skills. It actually comes from mastering a few skills.
Now, in this video, you're going to learn three core skills that will actually move the needle so those better players in your area start to take notice. By the way, if you're new here, I'm Kyle. I play professionally and I've meddled three times on the A Tour. I run that pickpickballschool.com which is a community of over 1,400 members. And if you haven't heard, I just signed with Friday Pickleball which is a paddle brand that is truly changing the game and having the most fun doing it. And we're going to be giving away one free paddle later in this video. So stay tuned and let's get started.
All right, so the first skill is don't attack from a disadvantage. And so this is your first coaching lesson, by the way. The first first official coaching, >> sir. Yes, sir. Yes, coach. So in my experience, one of the biggest problems that players across all levels, but especially lower levels have is they attack from disadvantage. So you know this >> I just heard lower levels and then you describing what we need to do. So continue. >> So if we zoom out for a second, go >> video is going to look a little different now. >> Like all right, everyone sit on your paddles, >> hands behind your back. >> And so uh if we zoom out for a second, one of the things that we teach in the the pickle ball school is we're calling it advantage pickle ball. So, there's three phases of every rally. There's neutral, which is what we're at right now. And neutral can be defined as all four players hit the kitchen. We're balanced, and nobody's created an advantage yet. Disadvantage, which we're going to talk about right now, is two of the players are either or or even just one of the players is either offbalance, outstretched, or off the line like we are right now. So, when we're in a disadvantaged position, the most common error is somebody tries to hit a winning shot from a disadvantaged position. The number one thing to remember is if you are in one of these three O's, outstretched, off the line, offbalance. >> The fourth O is obnoxiously loud. Then you you really want to do one thing, which is your neutralizing shot. So there's three types of neutralizing shots. The first one would be you could drive out of trouble. So if we are back at the baseline and someone hits the ball at us, we could drive out of trouble in order to just get a softer ball and go. We could hit a sky lob in order to just re-evaluate core positioning. Give oursel more time. Give it to me again. The third neutralizing shot is just hitting some type of reset back into the kitchen. And so anytime I'm off balance or I'm outstretched or we are just or we just have the ball low at our feet, we are not in a good court positioning to attack. All we want to do here is hit a ball that lands so that we can move back up here and then miss our dig from there. Cuz if you're going to lose, it's better to miss it when you get to the catch. >> Just take take a little bit longer to lose the point. Don't lose it so quickly.
Which leads into our second skill, which is knowing your safe zones. So, anytime we are in the disadvantaged position, we're usually feeling a lot of pressure. And if we're feeling a lot of pressure, we don't want to have to make a ton of decisions in the moment. One of the reasons people miss a lot is because they have so many thoughts going on in their head, they don't know which decision to make. So, you can actually automate these decisions in advance by just knowing a few things. Here's number one. Hit to the backhands as a predetermined safe zone. So, if Jake and I are working our way in and we're we're getting pressure, I already know that I have two safe zones with most human beings. Either to this backhand over here or to this backhand right here. If I'm playing a lefty righty, I'll adjust. Obviously, that's a forehand for this guy over here. So, when we're working our way in, if we're feeling pressure, I already know my targets exactly. They're going to help us move in. If I take this ball to the middle, that's a pretty aggressive forehand that might come at us. So that might not be my best safe zone, but that ball will help get us in. That ball was I was going for his backhand, coach. Won't have it again. >> Well, I do think that's one of the things about that that side backhand is you are just flirting with sideline, which does lead to number two, which is just putting the ball in unnatural hitting positions. So an unnatural hitting position would be basically anything that's not normal for you. So like if you guys stand out with your arms like this, anything there, very easy to crush. anything over to Isaac's forehand, very easy to crush with a ton of force. If I go anywhere towards the backhand, I can even be a little safer by not going so far over to the sideline, but actually putting the ball closer to the middle of Scott's stance.
All right, this is a good time to say that we're going to give away one free Friday paddle in every single YouTube video that we make. And if you want to win a free paddle, you just have to comment the word >> merger. >> Merger. >> Merger. >> Merger. And probably the best unnatural hitting position for Isaac would be in the center of his body where he has to hit a forehand. Yeah. Anytime you can get an opponent to actually hit a ball. This is an unnatural position. It's in front of them. Wherever you're watching this video from, take your arm, put it in front of you, and just try to be aggressive like this. There's no acceleration. There's going to be no force. And then take your arm out here and actually whip the ball like this. If you can keep the ball away from these positions and into these positions, you will get to the kitchen line more.
Now, here's the third one, and this is all about mindset. I call it the feel, fix, forward system. And this is going to help you win more points, or at the very least, it's going to help you not make dumb choices because you're mad about what happened in the previous point. Now, I want you to imagine the moment you lose a point. You hit the ball into the net or you send it long. And for a moment, I want you to think about the feeling you have. Maybe you feel frustrated, or maybe you feel angry, which by the way is a totally normal response. But here's what most players never consider. From the moment you miss the shot to the start of the next point, you've only got about 6 to 8 seconds. That's it. So, if you spend that entire time frustrated, you're wasting valuable time where you could be thinking about something that will help you in the next point. So, here's the system that I suggest. Feel fixed forward for about the first two seconds. Give yourself permission to feel the frustration because unagnowledged emotion doesn't disappear and actually it's going to leak into the next point and likely cause you to make a bad decision. Here's the second half fix. For the next two seconds, ask yourself this one question. Did I like my decisions during that point? Not the outcome, not the execution, the decision. Because in reality, you're not going to fix your mechanics in 6 seconds, but you can fix your decision making pretty quickly. So, if the answer was yes, you liked your decisions, great. Make those decisions again when that moment comes. But if the answer was no, ask yourself what decision would I make instead. And if you don't know the better decision, that's not a bad thing. That's totally normal. It's just a gap in your current knowledge. In fact, this is exactly what we work on inside my online pickleball school. We help players know what to do in specific situations so they're never guessing on court. And we have a 7-day free trial running right now. So, if you have decisions that you've been struggling with, this is the best way for you to ask me directly how to solve those problems. And yes, it will be me responding. So, I'm going to leave a link in the description below and you can check out that 7-day free trial after this video.
Now, here's the third F forward. Once you've felt those emotions and asked yourself that question, you're done. It's time for the next point. So, eyes back up, take a deep breath, and prepare to play. Now, listen. This is easy to say, but it's much harder to actually do. But the pursuit of this mentality, in my opinion, is what takes good players and makes them great much faster because the best competitors are not trying to calm down just to feel better. They're working to calm down so they can think clearer. Because when your mind is clear out there, you play more confident. And when you play more confident, you win more. And I think if you're watching this video, you'd love to be winning more because in pickle ball, having more points at the end of the game tends to be a lot more fun than having less points. Hope you enjoyed that video and make sure you subscribe to get more videos just like it coming.